* Rough Transcript *

Ep. 285

[00:00:00]

Sheldon: There’s an opportunity to say, how can I offer compassion in this space? If they’re not going to take it, if they’re going to still attack me, then how do I draw my boundary and my boundary, maybe removing myself from the space. And so for me, the answer is really about how do I do the work inside so that I can offer a safe space.

And then, if somebody doesn’t take the invitation, how do I then protect myself by doing whatever it is I need to do to protect myself.

Aurora: Welcome to the Embracing Intensity podcast. I’ll be sharing interviews and tips for gifted, creative, twice exceptional, and outside the box thinkers who use their fire in a positive way. My name is Aurora Remember Holtzman. After years of feeling too much, I finally realized that intensity is the source of my greatest power.

Now, instead of beating myself up about not measuring up to my own self imposed standards. [00:01:00]I’m on a mission to help people embrace their own intensity and befriend their brains so they can share their gifts with the world through the Embracing Intensity community, coaching, educational assessment, and other tools to help you use your fire without getting burned.

You can join us at embracingintensity. com.

Hello.

I am super thrilled to share this week’s conversation with Sheldon Gay, creator of the I Must Be Bugging podcast that highlights the voices and stories of black, unidentified, underrepresented, gifted, and otherwise neurodivergent folks.

Sheldon is incredibly thoughtful, warm, and insightful, and in this episode we dive deep into the topic of [00:02:00] mirroring the powerful experience of seeing ourselves reflected back in community and connection.

You can find the full discussion recording in the Embracing Intensity Membership and Guest Call Library.

This theme of mirroring and connection has been on my mind a lot lately, especially after publishing a recent vulnerable blog post on neurodivergent relationships that really resonated with many of you.

I am also super excited to share that I’m working on a plan to team up with Sheldon to explore the development of some neurodivergent friendly apps.

Be on the lookout for an upcoming survey as I begin working on the first tool, a streamlined task management app designed for A DHD brains like mine. If I can secure funding and build the right support team, I envision, a whole suite of tools that meet real neuro divergent needs. Something I’ve dreamed of but haven’t really had the capacity to bring to life until now.

In the meantime, I’ll continue [00:03:00] sharing my own musings, interviews and guest speaker episodes for you to ponder and explore. Enjoy!

Welcome, everyone. I’m super excited to have Sheldon here talking to us about the topic of mirroring. Thank you guys so much for joining us. I’m glad to see some new people and some familiar people and people I haven’t seen in a while.

I’m going to go ahead and let Sheldon introduce himself and the topic of mirroring and we’ll open for Q& A in the chat, and then we’ll open up for discussion.

So Sheldon, go ahead and introduce yourself. Welcome.

Sheldon: Thanks. First of all I’d have to say I always love interacting with this group, as you said, there’s some familiar faces here and just any of these spaces where we have the residents that, you know, brings us back like that’s super, super special.

And so to tell folks who don’t know who I am, my name is Sheldon Gay. I’m calling in from the [00:04:00] Philadelphia area. I, about two years ago now, had this kind of aha moment in life where I realized that I was gifted and it completely changed my life. You know, I began to really understand my childhood a lot better.

I began to understand my career, my professional career a lot better. I began to understand. relationships, whether they be friendships or romantic relationships, a lot better.

And so I started on this journey where I started a podcast called I Must Be Buggin where the buggin is B U G N, and it stands for Black Unidentified Underrepresented Gifted and Otherwise Neurodivergent.

And I speak about just that, right? Like I speak about, you know, broadly gifted and otherwise neurodivergent experiences and making sure that Those experiences are presented in a way that humanizes us as opposed to one where we’re being pathologized or, even Making sure that these things that are being shared are stories and not just like something that you [00:05:00] might pull out of a DSM, right?

Like, do not come and listen to me if you’re looking for these are the top 10 things that You know, autistic people do, or this is what gifted and again, no shot against people who do that, but that’s not what my podcast is about. My podcast is about sharing these great stories that are resonant across labels.

And to that point, one of the things that I share with folks is that labels don’t have to feel like pathology. And for me, that really speaks to the fact that, labels kind of help us contextualize our experience, but they don’t have to confine us, right? So, like, when Lana’s talking about feeling boxed in, you know, I’m gifted, but that doesn’t mean, like, my giftedness is expressed and experienced in the same exact way as anybody else.

And so, I share the stories, and if it resonates, then You know, I mean, like, that’s the vibe.

And so today’s, topic, talking a little bit about mirroring, that was honestly a key part of my acceptance, particularly my [00:06:00] acceptance piece of my gifted journey. You know, when I kind of had my aha moment.

There was a lot of doubt. It was like, did I kind of like force this label upon myself? Is this really what’s going on? And then I hired a gifted coach and she was like, look, I’m going to tell you about a couple of different groups. I want you to go to those groups.

And you just tell me. If you feel at home, she’s like, I know what I know, but like you go and do that. And so when I got into these gifted groups, it was like walking into, home, right?

I just felt not alone for one of the first times, in my life where the little ways in which my brain. works, the little ways in which I might find something funny the questions that I might have, the curiosities, the unending curiosities, right? I felt very much so at home.

And so the mirroring piece and how I’m [00:07:00] primarily going to talk about mirroring today is really about when you enter into a space and you feel yourself reflected back.

And that is incredibly important for us as humans because this journey that we’re on called life is fundamentally, a core part of that is this desire to not want to feel like you are this like dot floating through existence. And so when you walk into a space and Your light, a similar light is reflected back.

You realize that there is a connection and that we are all together, no matter how physically separate like we’re all calling in from different, physical locations, but there is a genuine connection here and being able to feel that is super, super important. And that again was a big thing for me.

The, quick example that I give. is, particularly for folks [00:08:00] who like me, I mean, maybe when I was younger, there was some sort of IQ test that I took. I don’t definitively know. But, you know, for those who may be, self diagnosed or whatever, right.

I had a friend earlier on who said to me, He said, well, how do you know?

Because he was very big on like IQ being a thing for giftedness. And I was like, I accept that there is, some correlation there, but I don’t think that you need an IQ test to know. And I don’t think that, for various, you know, systemic oppression, those kinds of reasons, why IQ for me is problematic, but like, you’re not even necessarily getting into that just yet.

For me, when I said to him, I said, okay, we’ll look. If you walk into a room and you saw one person wearing a referee’s uniform and you saw another person wearing a footlocker, you know, they worked at footlocker and they were still wearing their uniform. How would you tell the difference? Well, if you went and spoke to them I think you very clearly [00:09:00] identified which one is the one that worked at footlocker and which one was an actual referee.

And so if you can go into spaces and find That instant connection that that that resonance that for me is enough. Like I said, you can choose a label, you can fight for your label, you can get in a diagnosis is perfectly fine. But for me, I’ll recognize when I’m speaking to the referee, right, like I’ll understand that connection.

And so as long as that is true, that’s the only thing that really matters to me. And a key part of that is this mirroring of, again, when something comes up, like, Do we both get what I call brain sparkles? Right. And then, you know, it’s our brain activated. We get curious about it. Are we kind of trying to dig into things in a similar way?

And if that’s true, that mirroring, is really, really powerful. And so That’s kind of the core of how I describe and would expound upon, what mirroring is and why it’s [00:10:00] so important. And so, yeah, like my work now is very much so focused on helping to advocate and bring awareness to our experiences and to humanize our experiences for those who are struggling.

I mean, I would say you can look around and. And you know, many different places, but certainly in political spaces now, and they’re trying to erase and further demonize and marginalize us. And so, my job is to make sure that that doesn’t happen, like the door doesn’t get closed back to where it was whatever, 10, 15, 20 years ago, right?

And so I’ll stop there. Right. But I mean, that’s kind of, like I said, we’re a bit about me and why mirroring is so important.

Aurora: Awesome. And there’s some good discussion in the chat. I’ll include later. But if you guys have specific questions for Sheldon you can go ahead and put them in the chat as well.

And let’s see if there’s too big of a difference between the two key aspects of IQ, they aren’t even allowed to give you one IQ. Well, yeah, so the full [00:11:00] scale isn’t valid if there’s a lot of inner discrepancies.

On brain sparkles. I noticed that mirroring is happening when I use the brain and sparkle emoji next to each other. Oh, nice.

Somebody had asked about IQ number, one of the things about IQ number is it really depends on when you took it. I mean, obviously there’s a lot of cultural factors at play, like, Sheldon had mentioned. And for example, I had two different tests, but I dropped by like 20 points from when I was a kid to when I was in college due to a few factors. One, my executive functioning expectation goes way, way up.

So I think that impacted it and also I had some auditory processing stuff that showed up more particularly on the test that I took. And so, Sheldon is dead on about recognizing it and others. And that’s one of the reasons why I really want to get my self assessment course done this summer.

Because I was in a hardcore burnout, one of the things that I want to do is do some of the online IQ tests and, Kind of rate them as [00:12:00] somebody who actually does give IQ tests. So I know the limitations.

Another thing I learned recently is that the adult version of the Weschler is much more biased against ADHD than the children’s version.

Cause it has more working memory. There’s a bunch of different reasons. So I actually really hate it when I have to test a kid who’s over 16 because I have to give the adult version and you can score way lower because it’s heavier weighed for working memory.

So there’s a variety of reasons. But as Sheldon was saying, when it comes to recognizing in others, like, I agree. That’s one of the reasons why I deprioritize the idea of like, you have to be tested in order to know. There’s a lot of communities, most communities don’t require testing. I know Mensa does.

There’s the one where they have their own kind of testing that they do, which I have my issue with, but like, I think a lot of places are open to people who self identify. [00:13:00] And I totally am with Sheldon. Like after a certain point you start to recognize it. And I know back in the past when I was on dating apps, I literally was the one telling certain people like, Hey, you’re gifted.

Sheldon: Yeah, I mean, if we want to continue down this road, we can have, I don’t know how many ways you want to go down this this road, but I’ll just say that, to this point, right, we’ve already described many reasons why IQ can be, a challenging identifier, right? Because age, right?

Like if giftedness is about my fundamental, wiring and just who I am as a person, whether I’m five or 75, I’m still like me.

And so everybody ages, there are many things that I might go through, but am I not all of a sudden gifted or am I not as gifted because I mean, any number of, external factors or it’s certainly determinant factors, right? That to me is, is kind of an odd thing to say. You [00:14:00] know, There are ways in which maybe an IQ might be helpful for performing specific tasks if somebody were looking to perform specific tasks, but I think, again, understanding these different dimensions of executive functioning, working memory, like all these different elements.

The question still becomes, okay, if I don’t really need working memory, even kind of going back to thinking about for undergrad, I was having a conversation a couple of weeks ago. I was back at Drexel where I did my undergrad in mechanical engineering, which is even more true today, but a lot of the things that we learned is stuff that you now could just go look up.

Right. And so the question really wasn’t. Can you memorize the boiling point of water? It wasn’t, you know, do you remember how to do a Laplace transform? It’s, do you even understand contextually how to solve and approach the problem? And if you know that, then, okay, I can go look up what the boiling point of water is, right?

I can go and [00:15:00] look up the formula. that we’re looking for. But if I don’t even know how to even think about or approach the problem, then it really doesn’t matter. And for me, that is a lot of, how I started to discover myself was to realize how I was approaching problems, how it was so much different than how other people were approaching problems and why that in particular was challenging for them.

Right, where I was just like, well, what other way would you, do it? Or even, is that necessarily being the only way, but like, why would this be a problematic way of doing it?

And it was the realization, it’s like, oh, wait, for them, you know, I’m not sure how many folks are familiar with, but skip thinking, which is something that a lot of, if the folks talk about experiencing, and if you’re not familiar, skip thinking essentially refers to these times when, let’s say a problem is presented to you and Maybe there’s technically five steps that you can use to get from point A to point B to get the answer, instead of going through all five [00:16:00] steps, you go from one to five, or you go one, two, and then five, or whatever, right, but you skip, think over, to the last step.

And so, for me, there were definitively times when that happened. And so because I didn’t even know there was a three and a four right like so somebody kind of questioning how I would do that. And particularly again, as a little black boy, where there was a lot of presumption that I was cheating. How did you get.

there where you’re supposed to follow these different steps. And I’m like, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Right. And at the same time, like, is the answer not five or is it five? Like, I’m, I’m super confused here. Right. So thinking about what that ends up looking like and feeling like for people those who are familiar with those types of experiences, that to me is an essence.

That’s the core part, right? Regardless of the age and, maybe you started out and you were able to go from one to five, and maybe now you need two [00:17:00] to get there, or maybe it took you five minutes to get from one to five at age 20, and now it takes you 20 minutes. I don’t know, right?

Like, I’m just throwing numbers out here, right? But like, the point still is that if you are familiar with that experience I think about one of the affirmations that I read to myself to make sure that I don’t begin to doubt that there’s some sort of trick or some sort of like happenstance rule, you know, thing that’s happening is that

I basically say that I remind myself that I’m able to arrive at unique solutions, you know, innately. Right. And that’s just something that I remind myself because otherwise, you come up with answers. Other people can’t see it. And then you’re wondering, back to my thing with my podcast, I must be bugging because everybody else is getting 10.

I’m getting five. So, you know, I have to remind myself of that, but I think this is why just focusing on how one test might [00:18:00] measure that can be so problematic.

And the last thing I’ll just say very quickly is I think that for me, a key part of my giftedness is, the emotional piece, my empathy and my ability to, Recognize what’s happening with people

inside without a lot of data. I kind of skipped think emotions. If I was kind of oversimplifying it, right? There’s nothing like that on the IQ test. And so that’s a beautiful, brilliance of mine. And just because you can’t measure it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist and that it’s not a part of, my lived experience.

And so, anyway, I’ve talked, a bit about this stuff, but, yeah, would be another addition to what we’re discussing that I would provide.

Aurora: Absolutely. And 1 of the things when testing students that you can’t get from an IQ test is the quality of the answer.

Because, for example, especially on the verbal part. There’s a zero point answer, a [00:19:00] one point answer, and a two point answer, but a two point answer is still pretty basic. And so, you could actually have someone give an answer that could be like a five point answer, but they’re not going to get five points for that answer.

And so, you can tell just from the conversation and talking to the Person who’s answering the question, you can tell there’s a qualitative difference that can’t be measured on the number that they get.

And I’m going to focus on a couple more questions in the chat for now. And then I’m going to open up for discussion in a second.

So, I noticed the question.

What is there to say about how to handle the intimidation dynamic of being in non gifted spaces?

Sheldon: Yeah, I mean, I think this is a key part of anyone’s gifted journey, right? There are multiple parts of this where you move through kind of like the realization. You know There may be a denial piece in there, right?

But then, eventually there’s this like acceptance and Beyond [00:20:00] that, the thriving, and so if we kind of move to this part where you’re talking about, okay, I accept that I’m gifted, how do I then, when I move into spaces where there aren’t as many or any other gifted people, how do I thrive in those spaces?

And this is a key question because there will be people who will be intimidated. And this is, a part of the journey that’s kind of bittersweet right when you look back into the past where you realize, oh, the reason why adults didn’t like talking to you. Right, was because they were looking at this little kid who knew more about a topic than they did.

And, for various cultural reasons, various, systemic reasons, right, that can be a problem, whether they’re conscious of it or not.

And so what I would say is the key is less about like everybody else and more so about going inside of yourself and saying, because I accept who I am, what that also means is that when I look around me, I accept that [00:21:00] other people may be moving at a different pace, their route to the end point may be different.

And so I then see their frustration. As their challenge, they may be trying to project it on to me, but that’s their challenge, and it’s not personal because that’s where we get caught up right it’s like oh, how would you be standing in my way, you know, all the different things that come up that, make us take it personally.

There’s an opportunity to say, it still might not feel good. I’m not denying that part, right? Like, it doesn’t feel good when people doubt what you’re sharing, right? Where people find what you’re saying to be unbelievable when people think that you are trying to talk down to them for just giving them an answer that they supposedly asked for, right?

You have an opportunity to not take it personally when that happens and instead say, This is someone who’s not comfortable with where they are, and that is a human experience. [00:22:00] It’s not going to feel good necessarily, but I can pull from my compassion to then not respond in a way that it’s defensive or just kind of escalates the situation, I can offer them, an opportunity to feel good about the space feel safe in the space.

Whether or not they take it separate question.

This is not about giftedness but I’ll give a very very quick example that I think is still at least a parallel to this. I was in a library the other day and I was plugging my computer into one of the outlets for a particular reason.

The security guard came up to me and she was like, you can’t plug in there. And I’m like, okay. She’s like, you’re standing in front of the printer. Nobody else can use the printer. She like starts going on and on like multiple times and like telling me how I have to move.

Meanwhile, I’m already like, okay, and I’m closing my laptop. I’m starting to unplug and she’s continuously making these cases for why I have to move. And [00:23:00] I’ve not given her any reason to continue to do that. I didn’t say, well, why can’t I just plug in for five more? I didn’t say anything like that. I just kept saying, Okay, and later on she came back as I did move to the place that she said that I could plug in and she started out kind of a similar way like, you know that you can’t plug in down and I’m like, I don’t know what else you want me to say to you to let you know that like I’m okay.

Like, obviously I would have loved to just been able to knock out what I had to like then but like, I’m not here to box with you. And long and short is that it was this very clear realization. Because she kind of, she didn’t apologize, but what she said was she said you know, I was just doing my job.

And that’s when I was like, you know, I understand, because, I could have made that into a whole different type of situation. If I weren’t comfortable in my seat, [00:24:00] right? And that’s where we can get tripped up. So when we think about moving into these different spaces where folks who may not understand our experience with folks who may not realize that it is possible for someone to skip from one to five, right?

There’s an opportunity to say, how can I offer compassion in this space? If they’re not going to take it, if they’re going to still attack me, then how do I draw my boundary and my boundary, maybe removing myself from the space. And so for me, the answer is really about how do I do the work inside so that I can offer a safe space.

And then, if somebody doesn’t take the invitation, how do I then protect myself by doing whatever it is I need to do to protect myself.

And that’s kind of the end of the story. Does that answer? I mean, hopefully that answers the question.

Aurora: Yeah, we have one more question in the chat and then I’m going to open up for discussion.

One thing I did want to add, one of the things that comes up in a bunch of calls that came from

our

call on intuitive flow, when we talked about being a fire [00:25:00] hose and learning who can take the whole fire hose and who can take a drop at a time.

And that analogy has stuck with me for years. So I just want to shout out to Alice because that, if you’ve heard me reference that. That was the call

on intuitive flow

so I’m going to ask one more question and then I’m going to open up for the chat. What do you do if you sense other people’s emotions so strongly that you’re unconsciously mirroring back their emotions back at them in your own body language?

I’ll start with Sheldon, and then if other people have thoughts on that, you guys can feel free to share as well.

Sheldon: Yeah, I mean, if I understand the question correctly, it’s when we pick up on other people’s, emotions, and then we start to embody those emotions

instead of, processing them otherwise. And what I think, and this is really difficult for somebody like me who considers himself an empath, right, [00:26:00] is there would be many times where you enter into a space, Before you even realize it, you’re picking up on other people’s energy. I think the key thing here is, again, it’s about the internal work . That ability to kind of have a canary in the coal mine, as it were, right?

Because if you can kind of Recognize those initial signs somatically, right? Like, I think one of the biggest things, particularly for us as gifted folks, because we can have a propensity to intellectualize things, is to get really in touch with our bodies, because our bodies will tell us a lot.

So, Recognizing when maybe you know you’re getting goosebumps or when you’re feeling lethargic or when you’re getting a headache. I don’t know. It could be any number of different things right but like when you start to realize, oh, I’m in this space. I can’t figure out why I have a headache. It’s probably because There’s an energy here that I’m picking up on [00:27:00] and then the second part of that is to realize what tools work for me to process whatever I’m dealing with so that then I no longer internalize that and then I can let the anger that’s in the space not become my anger.

I can recognize that there’s anger in the space but I realize that’s outside of me, and I don’t need to let that let me spiral. Right. And so I think that’s a really, really key thing is just doing that internal work of recognizing how my body, how my mind responds when I am taking on other people’s stuff.

And then Develop or find the tools that work for you to process that through, so that it doesn’t stay with you. Hopefully that’s clear and helpful.

You know, it can be tough. It really can. Particularly when those emotions are super intense.

Aurora: Absolutely.

Sheldon: I think the short story here is realizing that we are [00:28:00] these full body mind soul beings. A little over a year ago I went on this retreat and one of the key things that the retreat was helping me work through was like before my official acceptance of giftedness.

At the time I didn’t even like saying that I was brilliant, like was just super, super uncomfortable. And so there was part of this process where. They were pushing me to accept that and so they were asking these questions and again I was going through the whole intellectualization of it and like, oh, here are all these different reasons and The long story short was they said no that’s in your mind What about in your body? This guy like put his hand on my heart on my chest and had me say I am brilliant And then that’s when all these tears poured out.

Like I just broke down because for the first time I felt it like all through the [00:29:00] full Sheldon, right. I was able to truly embody that. And it was like a dam broke. And so, even going through what other folks have shared, and even back to what I said earlier about all of us being different, it’s really, really important for you to figure out what are your levers, what are your strings that you need to pull?

If you do have Alexithelmia, like. It’s important to understand that and to have that label and to be able to dig into that because you know, then you won’t be trying to pour, water on an oil fire, as it were, right? And getting frustrated because the fire is getting worse and you’re like, I’m doing everything that people are telling me to, right?

And it’s not working or it’s getting worse. And it’s like, oh, well, Again, I have oil here, so I need to use a different method. But I think that again, this exploration of ourselves in all the different aspects of who we are is really, really important to being able to address these things.

Aurora: Absolutely, and [00:30:00] I like the analogy about the water on an oil fire

and I think 1 of the things to when we’re talking about this is remembering, when we have an hour and a half of discussion time, we’re going to barely scratch the surface of this. So, it’s definitely things to continue to explore more deeply if you have specific questions.

I do appreciate those of you who’ve been interacting in the community because that gives us more opportunity to continue and deepen the discussion when we have a limited time, so I really do appreciate that

Oh, Sheldon, you had an affirmation.

Sheldon: I looked it up of course, because of how, these brains work. It was like itching. I was like, Sheldon, that’s not exactly what you said.

So I went and looked up exactly, the message that I read to myself, which is I am capable of uncovering brilliant insights innately.

Right. So I just wanted to make sure that I put that in there for folks.

Aurora: Awesome. I’m going to post a question later about specifically what other people do that help when they’re taking on other people’s emotions and have a hard time reading their own. Cause I think that is a [00:31:00] very relatable topic that a lot of people have experienced.

And it actually goes into the theme of self empathy that I think is actually this month.

So, sheldon, you want to wrap things up?

Sheldon: Sure. So, I mean, this is, gosh, like I said, an hour and a half is for many others, but for groups like this is like never enough, right? But I am super grateful for this opportunity to, share with you all, talk a little bit about, the things that happen up here, what I call my Skull Journal.

I think, bringing it back to this emotional giftedness piece is super, super important.

And even as we’re wrapping up and talking about these different things that make it hard for us to find connection I’m really grateful for that because just to let you all know, as I continue my work, as I mentioned at the beginning, this, advocacy work of humanizing our experience.

One of the things that I’m planning to do is to do a like seven to 10 podcast [00:32:00] episode series, which I’m applying for a grant for because I want to do it like big, right? And the grant that I’m applying for, they want folks to talk about love and connection and challenges that people in general have with love and connection and loneliness.

But what I really want to speak to is How challenging that is for particularly black and neurodivergent folks, but also just the wisdom that comes from our experiences as neurodivergent folks, as we think about connecting so when people are talking about, you know, I’ve got trauma from being neglected.

And that’s particularly related to the fact that, let’s say, just as gifted people, people think we’re okay. Oh, they’ll figure it out. Well, that presents a different experience, right? A different kind of baggage when we show up in a relationship. Again, whether that be friendship, family, or romantic, right?

[00:33:00] There’s a different experience when we show up with that and to just ask somebody to take that and toss that to the side, right, is different when that neglect comes from things that can be very personal how your mind works. It’s not even just how you might look. It’s Like literally the fundamentals of who you are.

And so I really want to explore that because I think what we’re finding here in this discussion is that the aspects of being gifted, none of us here were like this entire discussion wasn’t about. Okay guys, can you remember. This object, like I’m going to show it to you. And then, you know, five seconds later, I need you to tell me exactly the orientation of the object, but that’s not what we’ve been sitting here doing.

What we’ve been talking about is the fullness of our humanity and how that has shown up for us personally, but then how it shows up as we try to relate to others. And so I think that it’s important for us to continue to dig into these parts of ourselves and to [00:34:00] continue to, particularly in these types of communities, share those things as vulnerably as it feels safe.

Because what, again, in this little bit of time that we’ve had, we’ve seen is that people have felt that mirror and they felt that resonance, and it’s really been helpful for them. And that’s kind of what I started out saying is that, you know, as much as those inner thoughts may feel scary. It’s when you put them out there, and you can then see that, wait, I thought I was literally the only one that had that thought, or was worrying it in that way.

All of a sudden, you can tell me, or think about that for yourself. What did that feel like when you heard that? What did it feel like when you saw someone? In the chat, something that just felt super resonant.

So what I’m just encouraging you all to do is to continue to, to do that work and to dive into this community, to be active in the embracing intensity community, because that means more opportunities not to feel the things that we’ve always felt, but more opportunities to feel [00:35:00] that joy that spark that we have been feeling during this call.

And, you know, please do stay connected. And, at the point at which I hopefully I’m going to be doing this work. I definitely want to be able to speak with and work with folks who know this experience personally. So that means folks like you. So I’m hoping that, there might be an opportunity to tap in at that point, but I’m just super, super grateful.

You know, hopefully again, you stay connected with me and my work, but most importantly is please do trust that your authenticity matters, not just to you, but to others.

Aurora: Awesome. Well, thank you so much.

And so one of the things I will point out when it comes to my guest speakers, you’ll notice that I only have four this year when I usually had like 10.

And the reason that I did that is for a few reasons.

But meantime, my monthly call is based on my ignite your power 12 part series, which is looking at self [00:36:00] regulation. I’ve made them the third Saturday.

So you can find the membership info

On my website.

 Thank you so much Sheldon for joining us. This is a great conversation and, I look forward to sharing.

 Looking for ways to embrace your own intensity. Join our embracing intensity community@embracingintensity.com where you’ll meet a growing group of like-minded people who get what it’s like to be gifted and intense and are committed to creating a supportive community as well as access to our courses and tools to help you use your fire without getting burned.

There’s also a pay what you can option through our Patreon where you can increase your pledge to help sustain the podcast or. Or join us at a rate that better fits your needs. You can also sign up for my [00:37:00] free Harnessing the Power of Your Intensity, a self regulation workbook for gifted, creative, and twice exceptional adults and teens.

All links can be found in the show notes or on EmbracingIntensity. com.